Executive Board Activities

Attended Executive Board Pre-Conference and Post-Conference meetings in New York, April 2004.

Attended mid-year board meeting in Calgary and Banff in July.

As Board Liaison, attended the umbrella Awards Committee meeting in New York. Throughout the year, tried to get a sense of the efficacy of this relatively new structure, both by asking directly and by observation.

Solicited opinions from the Co-Chairs of the Travel Awards Subcommittee concerning the viability of the current number and dollar amounts of the travel awards granted by the Society.

Served on task force to draft recommendations for expending from the travel award fund.

At the New York conference, co-hosted the Forum for public librarians interested in an official presence within ARLIS/NA. The required number of members signed a petition to form a Round Table, and the request was approved at the Post-Conference Board meeting.

Served on ad-hoc committee to study and revise the guidelines used by the Board to grant Special Funding Requests.

Regional Activities

Attended three Midwest Region chapter meetings:

ARLIS/Central Plains -- St. Joseph, Missouri/Atchison, Kansas in June.

ARLIS/Midstates -- During the New York annual conference in April.

ARLIS/Ohio Valley – Marietta, Ohio in October.

Solicited donations of funds from the chapters for the 2005 Houston conference.

Chapter Activities

ARLIS/Central Plains – The chapter met only once in 2004. The Spring meeting in June was held in the picturesque river towns of St. Joseph, Missouri and Atchison, Kansas. The chapter voted to accept an invitation from the ARLIS/Mountain West chapter to hold a Joint Chapter Meeting in the Fall of 2005 in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

The meeting featured a lively participatory program on recent reference sources, tours of art and house museums, and convivial meals. A series of unfortunate events resulted in the planned October meeting being cancelled. This is still the only chapter not to have its own website. Several false starts have occurred, but an effort is underway to have a site hosted by Oklahoma State University. The chapter’s newsletter, The Central Plains Irregular, is distributed online. The chapter has about 20 members; this includes four Life Members. The chapter’s main concern at this time is the small and static nature of membership numbers, and the lack of new members.

ARLIS/Midstates – The chapter met twice in 2004. The Spring meeting was held during the ARLIS/NA annual conference in New York in April, which I attended. The Fall meeting was held at Indiana University in Bloomington in October; I was unable to attend. Chapter membership is about 30. It maintains a website hosted by Indiana University. A major accomplishment in 2004 was the awarding of the first William C. Bunce ARLIS/ Midstates Travel Award. I worked with chapter officers to draft and submit a proposal to the Board to host the 2008 annual conference in Indianapolis, an offer that was accepted. A conference committee is already largely in place.

ARLIS/Ohio Valley – This chapter met once this year, in Marietta, Ohio in October. I was able to attend this meeting, which was a delightful mix of touring a historic river town and useful programming. Chapter membership is a little over 50; it grants a travel award to a member for travel to chapter meetings. The chapter maintains an online Discussion List hosted by the University of Pittsburgh and maintains a chapter website hosted by the Cincinnati Art Museum. Its newsletter, Collage, is available online. The chapter hopes to work on a shared database of artists files in the near future.

ARLIS/Twin Cities – This chapter met in April of 2004 and January of 2005, at the University of Minnesota. In the January meeting, last year’s Chair and Secretary/Treasurer agreed to stay in office for another year due to the lack of volunteers to assume these positions. They still lack a Vice-Chair/Chair-Elect. Chapter membership is about 20. Since all members are in the same greater metropolitan area, the chapter tends to schedule half-day meetings on short notice. The chapter maintains a website hosted by the University of Minnesota. Like many of my predecessors, I was not able to attend any Twin Cities meetings during my tenure. One of my goals as Midwest Regional Representative had been to manage to attend at least one of meeting of this chapter, but this goal will not be met.